A New Beast
by Shy Badger
Summary: In one of the Injustice multiverses, Beast Boy has died sending Raven down the path to joining Trigon. A new arrival may be the key to saving her, if he's not too far gone himself.
1. Chapter 1 (09-26 20:44:34)

So this story is set in a mutiverse from the Injustice games, with some inspiration from the comics and the cartoon. Beast Boy is dead, and Raven is beginning her journey towards joining Trigon. A surprise arrival might be the key to helping Raven, if he isn't too far gone himself.

Raven walked closely behind Batman's pitch black cape, in the hopes of getting this whole affair over with. Batman called Raven telling her that he needed help with an interrogation. No amount of protest seemed likely to change his mind, so Raven had agreed thinking it would lessen the inevitable headache that this would give her. A lecture from Batman was not something she wanted to sit through.

A walk through the Gotham Police Department wasn't turning out to be much better however. The negative emotions surrounding the place nearly choked her. The greif, anger, and hurt of the victims combined with the greed, rage, and malice of the criminals to create an aura so dark it was almost visable.

Batman carried on unfazed by all of this. The two walked for a few minutes longer until they arrived at the interrogation rooms. There were two police officers standing in front of the two farthest doors, one of whom approached Batman and offered his hand.

"The Commissioner ordered us to leave the suspect alone until you got here. He's in the farthest room on your left. We'll leave you two alone." With that the two officers left.

"Raven, you go to the observation room. I just want you to watch for now." Batman's gruff voice sounded wary, as if this was a more delicate situation than he let on.

"If I'm just watching then, then why do I need to be here?" Raven's voice may have been its usual monotone, but she was frutrated that he brought her out here just to do nothing.

Batman stared at her for a moment before addressing her question. "I brought you here because this is something I think you need to see. I know things have been hard for you after..." His last words hung in the air like a dark cloud to drown out what little light there was in the already dim environment.

"After Garfield was murdered. You don't have to dance around the death of my fiance." Raven had to force down the anger at being pitied. "It was bad enough that Slade killed him, I don't need everyone treating me like I'm made of glass."

Batman stood silent, seemingly to compose his next words with more care.

"I know that things have been hard for you since Beast Boy died. You seem to be slipping down a dark path. I know that your anger has been harder to control, you've been getting rough with villans lately. You've hurt a few of them pretty bad. I also know that you're isolating yourself from your team. I want to make sure that you don't do something that you, or the world might regret. And like I said, I think this is something you need to see, before anyone else. You'll understand when you get inside."

Batman raised his arm as invitation to enter the observation room. Raven took a breath to calm herself and opened the door. Batman shut the door behind her and made his way to interrogate the suspect on the other side of the glass. When Raven finally looked at the man in the other room, it became immediatly clear why Batman brought her here, and why he wouldn't let her talk to him.

Beast Boy sat staring at the ceiling with his hands resting behind his head, when he heard the door open. He didn't know who he was expecting them to send, but it sure wasn't Batman. Beast Boy's one good eye scanning up and down, noting that he was dressed almost exactly the same as his Batman. He decided to make the first move to test the waters.

"Batman! Hi. If I had known you were coming by, I would have made the place up a little, put some coffee on or somethin, you know? Here have a seat." Beast Boy walked around the table to pull the other chair out for the new arrival.

Batman remained standing as he stared down at the changeling.

"You took your cuffs off."

Beast Boy looked down at his bare wrists then shrugged. "Well they weren't the most comfortabe things in world, Just like these pants." he said kicking his leg out to put the prison's orange pants in better view. As Beast Boy returned to his own chair, he sighed. "I would just take them off, but something tells me I'd get in trouble."

Batman ignored the comment and sat in the remaining chair.

"Let's start with the basics. What is your name?"

"Well it's Garfield Logan, or Beast Boy, if you want to use my super hero name," He puffed out his chest and put his fists on his hips. "But you have one of those here so why not..." Beast Boy sat back and thought for a second. It was mostly a cover so he could try to keep calm. He had to remind himself that while this Batman looked the same, it was an entirely different person. The Batman that had abandoned him and his team was in a different universe now.

"The Beast? Changeling? Oh One Eyed Jack could work." Beast Boy pointed to the scar covering is missing right eye. "Maybe change it to One Eyed Gar. Of course there's always..." He paused for a second and looked down at the table. "Beast Man." he said quietly.

"Beast Boy will work fine for now." Batman's gruff voice stopped anymore suggestions. "Where did you come from Beast Boy?"

"A holding cell." Beast Boy was happy that at least a little of his wit had stayed intact after all he had been through.

"You know what I meant Beast Boy."

"Alright it was just a joke. Ummm... I don't know all the sciencey stuff, but I came form another universe, or dimension, or world. Whatever you want to call it. Fun place. It was filled to the brim with beautiful women and rainbows."

"How did you get here?"

"Not sure. Some portal thing opened up and dropped us off here." Beast Boy could still remember the unpleasent feeling of the portal that brought him and his prey here a few days ago.

"Us? Who is us? And how many of you were there?"

"Oh just the two of us, as far as I know. Slade was sucked into that portal thing and I followed him. It closed behind me though so it's just us two. Well... now I guess it's just me." Beast Boy felt a cocky smirk pull at his lips. It may have been morbid, but he couldn't help the feeling of pride he felt at bringing down such a tough opponent, or the satisfaction of finally getting his revenge.

"And it's just you, because you killed Slade. When the police found you two, your fangs were digging into Slade's throat. Is that correct?" Batman leaned forward, Beast Boy guessed it was to watch to see if he would lie.

"Yes. I killed Slade." Despite that Beast Boy felt justified in what he did, he knew that he had confessed to murder. Maybe it was his older 'heros always tell the truth' mentality shining through at the wrong time, or maybe it was the memory of Raven, telling him that what he did was wrong.

"Why did you kill him?" Batman was watching Beast Boy with an unreadable expression on his face.

"Because he's the reason all the other Titans are dead in my universe, and he was going to try to kill all the Titans in your universe. Killing him was the only way to save them." Beast Boy was telling the truth. Slade was going to kill the Titans in this universe. However Beast Boy may have exaggerated the need for Slade's death. It may have been possible to keep him locked up here, but then he wouldn't have answered for what he did, not truly.

"There is always another way Beast Boy." Batman's voice softened a bit, and Beast Boy didn't know if it was from dissappointment, greif, or pity.

"Look! If you knew the whole story, you wouldn't be so quick to say that!" Beast Boy's anger flared up so quickly that he couldn't find a way to laugh it off, so he took a deep breath to calm himself down.

"Why don't you tell me the whole story then?" Batman seemed genuinely concerned, which took Beast Boy by surprise. It wasn't like the Batman he knew. He couldn't help but let his guard down a little. After all, even if he had a new target, his main goal of killing Slade was taken care of. Anything else was extra.

"It's a really long story, dude." Beast Boy said with a small chuckle.

Batman nodded his head. "I've got time."

"What about the people behind the mirror?"

"There isn't anyone back there. It's just you and me."

Beast Boy couldn't tell if Batman was telling the truth, but he wanted to believe he was, so he slouched back in his chair and sighed. "Alright, you asked for it." Beast Boy scratched the back of his neck and looked up at the ceiling. "Where do I start though?"

"Why not at the beginning?"

"oh man, okay. Leeet's see." Beast Boy tried to brace himself. He didn't have much to lose by telling Batman everything, but it was going to be painful. "I guess it began when Slade rolled into town. Robin had been investigating who was behind a string of seemingly random robberies. We all thought he was crazy, but it turns out he was right. Slade was behind all of them, searching for a couple of things. He was looking for some high tech do-hickey, and an apprentice." Beast Boy threw his feet up on the table and leaned back in his chair. "I'll give you 3 guesses who was the lucky canidate."

Batman crossed his arms. "We had similar encounters here, though it was Robin who was hunted by Slade. However you said that the other titans were dead. Does that mean Slade chose you?"

"Yep. Good ole Beast Boy was apparently a perfect choice as an apprentice. He said it was due to how adaptable I was. I was like 'yo, I'm diggin the whole secret admirer thing, but I'm not into criminals.'"

Beast Boy wiggled his eyebrows suggestively and flashed a cheesy grin, just like he did on the day in question. Batman seemed unamused by his show. Beast Boy felt a nagging fear that this Batman was going to be as uncaring as his was after all, but he pressed on.

"Yeah. Slade was about as happy with that answer as you would guess, but he just backed off. Disappeared for like 3 years. He would orginize a crime here and there to keep us looking for him, but for the most part we didn't worry too much. Dick and Kory had a thing going. Raven and I got together too. Crime was under control and everything seemed perfect."

Beast Boy looked back on those years and sighed. That was when he was truly happy, before everything began to fall apart. He looked over Batman's shoulder to his reflection in the two way mirror. He was torn up and tired. His hair was long and unkempt, adding to his wild apperance. His right eye was scarred over and blind, but his left eye shined with the memories of those he lost. His mutton chops had grown back long ago. He used to shave them for Raven, but with her death and the chase for Slade taking over his life, he had stopped nearly all upkeep on his appearance.

"Beast Boy?" Batman's voice brought Beast Boy back to the moment. He shook his head and sat up again.

"Yeah, sorry. Where was I?.. Oh yeah. Everything was perfect. I even proposed to Raven, and she said yes. It was great. I asked her in this house of mirrors, with a clever line and everything, I was pretty irresistible." Beast Boy couldn't help the cocky smile on his face. However, it easily faded as he continued his story.

"About a week later, Slade had to ruin all of that."


	2. Chapter 2

"It was almost exactly one week after Rae and I got engaged that we got a message from Slade. He said that it was time for his apprentice to join him. He said that I didn't need anything from my old life, no keepsakes, no friends, and no lovers. I swear, he hacked our jumbo tv to play a pre-recorded message, but it felt like he was looking right at Raven when he said that."

A shiver ran down Beast Boy's spine as he remembered the cold look in Slade's eye that night. His hatred flared too, as he thought back to the event that started his journey to revenge.

"He said that, I had to meet him at the Jump City Pier alone or the I would regret it."

"So what did you do?"

A chuckle escaped Beast Boy's lips. "Even if I wanted to go alone, Robin wouldn't let me. Besides even he did, you can bet your ass my fiance wasn't going to have any of it, so we set up an ambush."

The memory played through Beast Boy's mind like a bad movie, every detail remained unforgotten to further torment him with his failure. Every scene still as clear as ever.

"I should have never let her come that night." Beast Boy's quiet words were almost lost to Batman, who was now looking a bit kinder than just a few minutes ago.

Four words repeated over and over in Beast Boy's head. The words that would spell out his deepest regret, and the realization of his greatest fear. You let her die.

"Before that night, Slade had been using robots. Hi-tech mechs to act and fight just like people. He even had a couple that looked just like him. Well those robots had been getting harder and harder to take down, we had to hit them with everything we had that night. We didn't notice until it was too late."

"Notice what?"

Beast Boy was struggling to keep his composure as the memories came flooding back. One after another the images from that night threatened to overwhelm him.

"We had just sprung the ambush. I was alone on the pier and the others were in the closed carnival rides when Slade arrived. We thought he came alone so we pounced. It seemed like an easy capture, but then more of his mechs came out of nowhere. These things were bigger than normal but they hit just as hard, so Robin ordered us to take them down. We did what we've learned to do, hit them fast and hit them hard. But when I took down my second one , I notice a lot of blood everywhere. None of us had been hurt or anything thing though, so i didn't understand. Until I heard the screaming. Slade had put innocent people inside his robots, and was using us to kill them."

Beast Boy looked at his hands, and for a moment, he was on that pier again. His hands were no longer human, but the paws of a bear, and covered in deep red, soul damning blood. The screams that echoed across the normally happy carnival haunted Beast Boy for the rest of his life, and robbed him of more sleep than he thought possible, and yet, that night had much worse in store.

"More and more of those bots kept coming, so Robin ordered us to fall back. We were going to go to plan b, and lead him into a trap. We assumed that Slade was going to chase after me, since I was his target. That was what we were counting on for plan b to even work, but Slade didn't play along. He sent the bots to attack us while he ran off, because he knew we wouldn't fight them now. We all got split up in our escape though. I didn't know what was happening to the other Titans, I was just trying to lose the bots and get to the spot Robin set as our meet up area."

All the emotions from that night came rushing back at that moment. The fear of losing his friends and lover, the guilt of killing civilians, and the dread from his animal instincts telling him that tonight was going to change everything. Beast Boy knew he had to tell Batman what happened now or he wouldn't be able to.

"When I finally lost the bots, I went straight to the rendezvous, and found only two other people there. Raven, and Slade." The memory played out before Beast Boy like he was back in that moment. He hadn't told that many people exactly what went down that night, so it was still tough. The terror, the guilt, the hatred, and the grief from that night stabbing him just as deeply as they ever had.

"I tried to get to her in time. I tried so damn hard to save her." Beast Boy could feel the tears flowing even as he spoke. His one good eye trailing the proof of his anguish without any sign of stopping. "I should have never let her come that night. I should have gotten there sooner, or tried a faster form. I should have never let her out of my sight. I should have been better. I should have protected her, like I had promised." Beast Boy had dwelled on the "what ifs" so much that those lines were etched into his mind, searing the guilt so deep into his heart that relief seemed impossible.

"Instead, that bastard drove his sword through her gut. In one move, he ended every plan I had for the future. He took away the woman I loved, and told me that I wouldn't need her anymore." Beast Boy clenched his fists so hard that his claws dug into his palms. Killing Slade put him a little at ease, because it meant no one else would have to feel this pain. However it did nothing to heal the wounds already there.

"I ran to her while Slade ran away. I tried to stop the bleeding. I kept telling her that everything was going to be fine, that the other titans would be there soon and we would patch her up good as new." Beast Boy's voice cracked. struggling to continue speaking through the emotions that burdened him. "We waited for what seemed like forever. I didn't have any way to help Raven except keeping pressure on the wound, and she wasn't healing on her own like she normally would. Raven said that it meant that she wasn't going to make it out of this one." Beast Boy's voice cracked again, as he took a moment to collect himself a little before he continued. "She kept trying to tell me things. You know, the things you tell your loved ones before you die, but I kept interrupting her. I wouldn't accept that after everything we had been through, after all the times we have faced death and made it out alive, that it could... but then..."

A lump appeared in Beast Boy's throat that silenced him, as Batman vanished. The interrogation room was replaced by that cold empty warehouse, and in his arms was his dying fiancé. Nothing he had been doing stopped the bleeding. Beast Boy had been frantically thinking of any way to keep her alive, when his thoughts were interrupted by Raven's hand gently cupping his cheek. "Hey." Beast Boy grabbed her hand and flashed her the best smile he could manage at the moment. "It's gonna be ok."

Raven's voice betrayed nothing of the serious situation they were in. Instead, she smiled and spoke calmly, almost as if she had just woken up in their bed.

"Gar. I love you."

As her sentence ended, Raven's body went limp. Beast Boy sat frozen, unable to react in any of the ways that his various animal instincts compelled him to. Even time seemed to pause to mourn the loss of his better half.

"And then?" Batman's question yanked Beast Boy back to the present.

"Then she was gone." A whisper was all that Beast Boy could manage thanks to the lump in his throat. Even still the memory of that night refused to leave his mind.

The image of Raven's body, cold and lifeless, and her blood on his hands had plagued his dreams almost every night since her death, a constant reminder of his failure. That his best friend, and lover, had been stolen from him while he was powerless to stop it.

"She deserved so much better. I was supposed to protect her, but I wasn't good enough. I was supposed to give her a future, a child, but I wasn't strong enough to keep her safe. I..."

Beast Boy and Batman jumped as a loud rumble came from behind the mirror. Beast Boy turned to Batman.

"I thought you said no one was back there."

Batman walked towards the door, "There isn't. Stay here." Without another word, Batman left Beast Boy alone in the room, with nothing but his thoughts for company.

Beast Boy couldn't help growing suspicious. His Batman was known for lying when it suited him. It didn't help that Beast Boy felt that his Batman was partially to blame for the other Titan's deaths, so Beast Boy was having a hard time seeing this Batman in the best light. Dealing with his emotions wasn't too easy for him either. Beast Boy usually tried to cover everything with a smile, but he had pushed these feelings down for so long that, now that he had achieved his goal of killing Slade, they were all rushing to the surface.

Beast Boy wiped the tears off his face and tried to calm himself down, telling himself that he was just being paranoid. It's not like any of it mattered anyway. He gotten his revenge. Sure some things he heard after getting to this world might have given him something else to do, but that was for after all this, and he wasn't as obsessed with this new goal as he was with the last one.

Beast Boy waited for a while until Batman finally returned to the room. The first thing Beast Boy noticed was the smell. Batman now smelled heavily of soap. As if he had swam in it then dried off with some moist towelettes. There was something underneath that though. something familiar, that he couldn't identify through the overwhelming smells of what ever was purveying the air.

"Jeez dude. Did you dive head first into a pool of hand soap?" Beast Boy complained pinching his nose.

Batman took his seat to which Beast Boy responded by scooting his own seat back.

"Sorry, one of the inmates tried a poorly timed escape that included a makeshift bomb in his toilet. I know you're sensitive to smell so I tried to cover it up after I washed off."

Beast Boy didn't buy it. No matter what soap he used, he'd still be ably to faintly smell whatever was there before, and what was there before didn't smell anything like that. It smelled like something from forever ago. The soap may not have hid it completely, but it did stop him from identifying it. Beast Boy decided to let it go for now, though a voice in the back of his head told him that he was right to be suspicious.

"So, what happened after Slade ran off?"

Batman would give Beast Boy no time to relax it seemed.

Beast Boy sighed and tried to quiet his stirring mind. "I'm not quite sure. After Raven... After that, everything just kind of goes black. The other titans said that when they got there, I had transformed into the Beast and started tracking him. They say that I was feral and tried to track him for two days straight until i passed out from exhaustion. In that time, Robin dealt with police and, with the help of Cyborg's hacking, they found where he was hiding."

Beast Boy crossed his arms over his chest. "And like an idiot, I charged straight in."


End file.
